Commercial Lawn Care: Look Out For Grubs!

Commercial lawn care services available from Landworks include fertilizer and insecticide treatments to control grubs. Grubs can destroy a beautiful lawn quite quickly, so controlling them is critical to keeping your property looking its best.

Grubs burrow deep into your lawn and feed on grass roots and organic matter in the soil. A few grubs won’t harm a lawn and may even be healthy, but when they become concentrated in an area they destroy the root system and kill your grass.

Typical lawn grubs are the white, c-shaped larvae of a few different types of beetles like Japanese beetles and June bugs. They are about a half inch long with brown heads and six legs. 

How do you get grubs?

The grub lifecycle starts when the adult beetles lay eggs in your turf. Adult beetles lay their eggs in the soil in June, and they hatch a few weeks later and immediately start feeding. As the weather gets colder, grubs burrow farther underground to protect themselves through the winter. As soil temperatures warm in the spring, the grubs migrate back to the surface to feed again. This cycle continues for 2-3 years before the grubs emerge as beetles and lay eggs, beginning a new cycle.

What happens to turf when you have grubs?

If you have irregularly shaped brown or yellow patches of grass, there is a good chance grubs are the culprit. A spongy feeling to your turf could signal a grub problem even before patches start to die. Pencil sized holes appear where birds feed on the grubs, and other animals like moles, raccoons, or skunks may tear up your turf. 

If the root system has been badly eaten away, you may be able to simply lift the turf and roll it back like carpet. If you dig up a square foot area of turf about 2” deep and find ten or more grubs, it’s time to call in the professionals at Landworks.

How do commercial lawn care services prevent grubs?

There are a couple options to help prevent a grub infestation before it starts. Grub populations tend to be highest in consistently moist conditions, so ensuring proper drainage and periodically withholding irrigation in hot summer months can discourage them. Irrigation practices will not prevent them entirely, however. 

Another preventative option is nematode application. Beneficial nematodes are microscopic parasitic worms that get inside grubs and release bacteria that kills them. Nematodes should be applied in both spring and fall for best results.

The damage that grubs do in late summer becomes visible the following spring. This means that preventative grub control methods from commercial lawn care services are much better than waiting until the damage is done.

How do commercial lawn care services treat existing grubs?

Landworks’ commercial services include weed control and optional grub control with our fertilizer service. We apply the grub control in July when the grubs are most susceptible to insecticide. This ensures that your grub problem is under control before visible damage is done to your commercial property. 

For more information about commercial landscaping services from Landworks, call (913) 422-9300. To request a quote, click here.